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Making A Drawstring Bag For Cups And Balls

December 13, 2015 by MagicKen Leave a Comment

Drawstring-Bag-for-cups-and-balls-1In Michael Ammar’s book, The Magic of Michael Ammar, there is a description of a drawstring bag used for holding 3 cups and their balls, along with instructions for loading it so it’s ready to go when you are ready for performing. Since none of the drawstring bags I had lying around were the right size, I went ahead and made my own. This is a big deal for me because I did not get the “making stuff” gene:-P.

After some experimenting with materials and size, I think I came up with something that should work perfectly. One thing I discovered was that leather did not work very well. It was difficult for the cups to easily slide out of bag made with leather. So I made one with flannel. I suspect pretty much any fabric would work as long as it isn’t too thin.

Another thing I did that seemed to work well, though I didn’t compare it with the alternative, was to make a tube-style bag. That basically means that rather than sewing 3 flat sides of a rectangle together, I sewed the short sides together to make a cylinder open at 2 ends. Then I sewed a circular piece to make the bottom of the bag.

Here is a rough pattern (not to scale!)

Drawstring-Bag-for-cups-and-balls-Pattern-web

The rectangle is drawn sideways – The left side (where it says 10″) is actually the bottom of the bag. Sorry about that:-P. Anyway, sew the 2 short sides together from the bottom to just where the dashed line is. This is so you can leave the top part open where the drawstring channel will be. Then sew the edges of the circle piece to the edges of the bottom of the bag.

Lastly, fold the top of the bag to where the edge comes down about 1-1/4 inches and sew that down, leaving an opening for the string to go through. there will be 2 openings to the channel on one side of the bag.

Now all you have to do is thread you string through. You could just thread one long string all the way through. But my wife offered a different way that uses 2 strings. To do that, cut another opening in the channel opposite the one that is naturally left after stitching it up the first time. Snip it down from the top, but not so far down that you cut through the stitching that closes the channel. Make it only about an inch – wide enough for the string to get through.

Lastly, cut 2 lengths of string (I used cotton shoelace material) about 24 inches long. Thread one through one of the right-side openings (see picture at bottom for these “openings” I keep talking about), out the left side and back through the other left side opening so that it comes out the other right-side opening. Then do the opposite withe the other string – that is, thread it through one of the left-side openings, out the right side and back through the other right-side opening until it comes out of the other left-side opening. And you’re done!

At the top of the page is a picture with the bag holding 3 cups and balls. Below is the empty bag with the cups stacked next to it just like it was inside the bag.

Drawstring-for-cups-and-balls-Bag-2

Drawstring-Bag-Openings

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Ken Theriot Musician, Popcorn Addict. Sara Bareilles Fan. Blogger. Aspiring Magician.More about me.
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